Tag: Trump UN Climate climate

LONDON (Reuters) – The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate pact is unlikely to have a direct impact on the expected decline in global carbon emissions, BP’s chief economist said on Tuesday.

“Nearly all the improvement in (carbon reduction) comes from the developing world, it isn’t coming from OECD or America,” Spencer Dale said during a presentation of BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy.

The reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in recent years has been a result of cheaper natural gas pushing out more polluting coal rather than regulations, he said.

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump “believes the climate is changing,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Saturday after Trump’s decision to take the United States out of the Paris climate accord sparked dismay across the world.

“President Trump believes the climate is changing and he believes pollutants are part of the equation,” Haley said during an excerpt of a CNN interview released on Saturday. The interview will be broadcast on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Trump “knows that it’s changing and that the U.S. has to be responsible for it and that’s what we’re going to do,” Haley said.

On Thursday, Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate change pact, tapping into his “America First” campaign theme. He said participating in the pact would undermine the U.S. economy, wipe out jobs, weaken national sovereignty and put his country at a permanent disadvantage.

“Just because the U.S. got out of a club doesn’t mean we aren’t going to care about the environment,” Haley said.

Later on Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence said that remaining in the accord would have proved costly to U.S. economic growth and to the working-class Americans at the core of Trump’s political base.

“By withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, President Donald Trump chose to put the forgotten men and women of America first. And he always will,” Pence told a political rally in Iowa.

On Friday, nobody at the White House was able to say whether Trump believed in climate change. In recent years, he has expressed skepticism about whether climate change is real, sometimes calling it a hoax. But since becoming president, he has not offered an opinion.

The decision to take the United States out of the pact prompted a negative reaction around the world, and world leaders redoubled their commitment to an accord agreed to by every country on the planet save Nicaragua and Syria.

China and Europe on Friday pledged to unite to save what German Chancellor Angela Merkel called “our Mother Earth,” standing firmly against Trump’s decision.

The vast majority of scientists believe global warming is mainly the result of human activities, including power generation, transportation, agriculture and industry.

A small group of skeptics, some of them in the White House, believe the Paris pact threatened business.

(Reporting by Mike Stone; additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

WASHINGTON — Americans for a Better Economy President Donald Ferguson released the following statement Thursday:We hope today’s announcement is a total and immediate withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations’ Paris climate agreement as a participant, funder and signatory. The U.S. must have no involvement whatsoever with this agreement, starting immediately.

Thousands of Americans for a Better Economy supporters signed our petition at BetterEconomy.org demanding total and immediate withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations’ Paris climate agreement. We hope today’s announcement by President Trump fulfills that demand made by thousands of voting conservatives.

The U.N.’s own figures show the agreement has virtually no impact on global temperatures. it would, however, cost 400,000 Americans their jobs and send electric bills skyrocketing by between 13 and 20 percent.

In fact, the existential threat posed by U.N. climate agreements requires even further steps.

Total and immediate withdrawal from the Paris agreement is only the first step. So long as the U.S. remains in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, these threats to our jobs, our economy and our personal freedoms will always loom over us.

President Trump and the United States Senate must fully withdraw the U.S. from the U.N.F.C.C.

We urge President Trump submit this request for the Senate’s consideration and vote.

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Americans for a Better Economy (http://www.BetterEconomy.org) is the nation’s most effective grassroots opponent of liberal environmentalism.

President Donald Trump has arrived in Italy for the G-7 summit, where foreign leaders will press him to abandon core elements of his “America First” agenda in favor of a more globalist agenda.

As National Public Radio reported last week, “President Trump is expected to face pressure from European Union leaders … to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Treaty.”

Leaders from those foreign nations should prepare for disappointment.

The start of the G-7 summit, held in the swanky coastal town of Taormina, located on the island of Sicily, just happens to be the one-year anniversary of Trump’s famous energy policy speech in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Then-candidate Trump made clear that his administration would “cancel the Paris climate agreement,” both because it was bad for America and because it violated our nation’s laws:

President [Barack] Obama entered the United States into the Paris climate accord unilaterally and without the permission of Congress. This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much our energy and how much we use right here in America. So foreign bureaucrats are gonna be controlling what we’re using and what we’re doing on our land in our country. No way. No way.

A lot can change in 365 days, but the fundamental flaws of the Paris Agreement that Trump identified have not.

Speaking to NPR’s Ari Shapiro last week, Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden rightly noted that “[o]f course it is the U.S.’s sovereign decision” on whether to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

America is a geographically diverse and expansive nation, which makes comprehensive global regulatory schemes difficult to implement without massive disruption.

In fact, during a recent speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump said “it is estimated that for compliance with the [Paris Agreement] could ultimately shrink America’s [gross domestic product] by $2.5 trillion … ”

The numbers get even worse, according to Heritage Foundation research.

By 2035, household electricity expenditures will increase between 13 to 20 percent, family of four income loss will exceed $20,000, and there will be more than 200,000 fewer manufacturing jobs due to the “policies adapted from domestic regulations emphasized in the Paris Agreement [that] will affect a variety of aspects of the American economy.”

According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 21 states have either voluntary renewable energy standards or no standards, and 20 of those voted for Trump last November. Trump also won manufacturing states with mandatory renewable standards—states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Many of those voters found their voice in Trump.

Shell’s van Beurden told NPR that pulling out of the Paris Agreement would put the United States “off-site for such an important societal debate” and strongly implied that it would undermine America’s ability to “have a strong, meaningful, and impactful voice at all tables around the world.”

Of course, we have seen what happens when an American president kowtows to global elites in an effort to be heard and loved.

During his infamous apology tour, Obama told a group of foreign leaders that “with my election and the early decisions that we’ve made, that you’re starting to see some restoration of America’s standing in the world.”

He apologized to the Europeans for the “times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

Trump’s election was a repudiation of that approach.

The path forward for the Trump administration is clear, and it begins with following through on the president’s pledge to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

Doing so would restore certainty for America’s job creators and make it more difficult for future administrations to abuse the global warming agreement and advance destructive policy initiatives.

Enduring policy victories are the foundation upon which legacies are built.

Commentary by Dan Holler. Dan Holler is vice president of Heritage Action for America. Originally published by The Daily Signal. The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Two Republican governors urged U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Wednesday to ensure the United States does not withdraw from a pact that requires countries around the world to lower greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to slow global warming.

Vermont Governor Philip Scott and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said a U.S. government decision to remain in the Paris climate accord would demonstrate the “leadership” necessary to help states reduce their carbon emissions.

Nearly 200 countries have signed the 2015 agreement.

“There are shared costs that need to be addressed to cut carbon pollution,” the governors wrote in a letter to Perry, a Republican former governor of Texas. “It also allows us to maintain our global economic leadership.”

An Energy Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump suggested during last year’s election campaign that he would pull the United States out of the Paris accord. At least two meetings in which Perry and other officials were to discuss the matter this year have been canceled.

Last week, the White House said Trump would announce a decision after he returns from the May 26-27 Group of Seven summit in Italy.

Several officials close to Trump, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, have pushed for a U.S. withdrawal from the accord. Perry told a conference in New York last month that he thought the United States should “renegotiate” the agreement.

More than a dozen governors and just as many state attorneys general have urged Trump not to pull out of the agreement, as have European officials.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed an agreement recognizing the landmark Paris climate accord at a meeting of Arctic nations in Alaska on Thursday, but said President Donald Trump was not rushing to decide whether to leave or weaken U.S. commitments to the pact.

The Arctic agreement Tillerson signed with foreign ministers from the other seven nations of the council, including Russia, Canada and Norway, made only a passing reference to the Paris pact. It noted “entry into force” of the pact and its implementation and called for global action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

Still, Tillerson’s signing of the document surprised a source close to the State Department. “We’d heard … that there would likely be a significant U.S. effort to redline or even remove entirely the Paris and climate language,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the talks.

Tillerson came around to the agreement after hours of debate following a dinner the council members ate together on Wednesday night, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told Reuters. Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, is one of Trump’s advisers who supports staying in the agreement.

“He was happy about it; he seemed to be satisfied. We all were because it’s a big step,” Samuelsen said.

Tillerson told the council the Trump administration was reviewing how it will approach climate change but was not going to rush to make a decision on Paris. “We are appreciative that each of you has an important point of view,” said Tillerson. “We are going to make the right decision for the United States,” said Tillerson.

Trump is expected to make a decision on Paris after a Group of Seven summit at the end of May.

Finland’s Foreign Minister Timo Soini, whose country will chair the council for the next two years, praised U.S. leadership in the Arctic Council, but added that the Paris pact is an important tool in fighting climate change.

The council also signed an agreement on sharing science and data on the Arctic, an effort led by Russia and the United States, and addressed Arctic search and rescue and communications.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Tom Brown and James Dalgleish)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will not make a decision on whether to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement until after he returns from the May 26-27 Group of Seven summit, the White House said Tuesday.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump is continuing to hear from advisers on the pros and cons of the United States remaining in the global accord. He will make a decision when he returns from the G7 summit in Italy, not prior to that, as originally planned.

“It’s a sign that the president wants to continue to meet with his team … and come to a decision on what’s (in) the best interest of the United States,” Spicer told reporters.

Trump advisers had been scheduled to meet at the White House on Tuesday to try to reach a final decision, but a White House official said the meeting was postponed due to scheduling conflicts.

His advisers and cabinet chiefs have been split over whether Trump should keep his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the agreement or remain to try to reshape it, according to senior administration officials and several people briefed on the meeting.

His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who are senior presidential advisers, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are in favor of remaining, while Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and senior adviser Steve Bannon have urged Trump to withdraw.

Advisers had been under pressure to deliver a final recommendation to Trump ahead of the May 26-27 G7 meeting.